The fast development of information technology (IT) and the rise of the Internet have resulted in new ways that people deal with information and interact and communicate with each other. Today a plethora of information systems (IS) exist that aim at supporting individuals, organizations, or other entities in deriving advantages from these new possibilities. However, it is often not clear to what extent such IS achieve their purpose. This lack of clarity is not surprising; assessing the impact of IS is difficult because of problems such as the difficulty of assessing benefits using tangible numbers. IS success research, which has been underway for more than three decades, has suggested various models and constructs to measure and explain IS success. IS success, as the ultimate dependent variable, is typically measured in terms of its effect – often labeled “impact” or “net benefit” – on a particular entity. Net benefit is often regarded as the most important success measure because it captures both the positive and the negative effects of IS on users and other entities. However, because of its multi-dimensionality, IS success can be evaluated from several perspectives and at various levels, making it difficult for researchers and practitioners to agree on the best way to measure the impact of IS.

It has been suggested to evaluate the impact of IS on the individual and the organizational level. However, some researchers have criticized that these two levels are only two points on a continuum of possible beneficiaries. Because of this criticism, the understanding of the net benefit construct was significantly broadened in order to leave room for further expansion to investigate other dimensions of impact or benefit. Although research has suggested the investigation of other dimensions, such as workgroups or society, the studies that have adopted such dimensions are rare. Therefore, the full variety of potential dimensions of IS impact, their differentiation, and potential approaches to their measurement remain unclear. While the literature has provided an in-depth analysis of the independent variables of IS success, to our knowledge no overview of contemporary dimensions of IS impact and their operationalizations has yet been presented.

IS Impact Framework (ISIF) Scheme

Accordingly, in a recent research project, our goal was to synthesize literature on IS success and to propose a framework of potential IS impact dimensions, along with measures we identified in the literature that are suitable for operationalizing them. As a result, we provide an IS Success Impact Framework (ISIF) that provides further insights on the nature of IS success and guides future studies on IS success by providing direction on how to measure the net benefits of IS. Our work contributes to IS research in that it (a) synthesizes and (b) extends the knowledge on IS success evaluation. The research results have recently been accepted for publication:Herbst, A., Urbach, N. and vom Brocke, J. (2014) Shedding Light on the Impact Dimension of Information Systems Success: A Synthesis of the Literature, Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS-47), January 6-9, Hilton Waikoloa, Big Island. (Link)

Today, organizations increasingly use and depend on information technology (IT) to achieve their business objectives. The use of IT is grained through an amalgam of organizational, technical, and cultural influences. Effective IT governance (ITG) is required to orchestrate this mixture, which has become an important issue in both academic research and organizational practice. Despite its popularity, the ITG notion remains vague. The term ITG has been widely used by many parties, such as IT managers, consultants, auditors, and software providers, for various aspects of corporate IT management. Practitioners’ perceptions of ITG objectives, properties, and responsibilities thus appear as unclear and heterogeneous as they do in the literature. In addition, comprehensive knowledge of the factors influencing ITG success and its subsequent impact in terms of a unifying model is scarce. Existing practitioner guides do provide helpful advice, but are often not generalized from specific implementations, display limited rigor, and do not provide sufficient explanation of the cause-effect relationships. Furthermore, previous academic research has only provided studies on individual ITG success determinants and consequences. However, none of these studies combine ITG success determinants and consequences into a comprehensive and integrated model of ITG success and its impact.

In a recent research project, we addressed two research objectives accordingly: (1) understanding the factors that influence and result from successful ITG, and (2) integrating these factors into a model that explains ITG success and its impact. Given the rather limited theoretical body of knowledge that underpins ITG success research, we followed a qualitative-explorative approach. We conducted 25 interviews in 19 companies across different industries, analyzed and interpreted the collected data by applying extensive content analysis, and compared our findings with prior research results. Aggregating what we learned from the 25 interviews, we propose a model that describes how the various observed constructs are interrelated and how they contribute to or result from successful ITG.

Model of IT Governance Success and Impact

Our results contribute to research on ITG by providing a model that explains how ITG should be designed in order to be successful and what the organizational impact of successful ITG will be. Our research identified several constructs and relationships that are strongly supported by empirical evidence, some of which previous research has not investigated. Practitioners will benefit from this model, because it enables them to better set up and develop ITG, as well as to understand and promote its potential impact. The research results have recently been accepted for publication:Urbach, N., Buchwald, A. and Ahlemann, F. (2013) Understanding IT Governance Success and its Impact: Results from an Interview Study, Proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2013), June 5-8, Utrecht, The Netherlands. (Link)

Digital natives – the generation for whom the Internet has always existed – have embraced the medium as one of choice. They use social computing applications as a medium for many activities, including receiving and giving product advice (ratings, comments), meeting with and talking to friends (social networking, chat), organizing events (social networking), learning (Wikipedia, weblogs), and communication with the general public (Youtube, weblogs). Facebook, a social networking service, has reached an audience of approximately 800 million users; young Iranians organize protests against their government via social networks, while amateur journalists and artists are viewed by millions on Youtube and weblogs. Inspired by these developments, corporations now seek to adopt social computing applications and derive similar benefits for their organizations. However, despite their growing interest, many firms report significant problems with the implementation and acceptance of social computing applications.

In a recent research project we investigated how three companies resolved these issues and improved communication and collaboration by incorporating social computing applications into their intranets. Based on the insights gathered from the cases, a general process for the adoption of social computing applications is proposed.

Corporate Adoption of Social Computing

According to our process theory, corporate social computing projects start with a need for better communication and/or collaboration between corporate employees, their business units, or even smaller units (1). When such a need becomes obvious to an employee interested in starting a project, resources required to continue have to be mobilized. These resources may often only be obtained by involving the respective management team (2). Consequently, it is often necessary to inform the management of the needs expressed by the employees by engaging them in workshops or informal meetings in order to carry the idea to the next level. To succeed, the innovator(s) has(have) to use hard data to illustrate the communication and/or collaboration deficiencies. In our cases, surveys and interviews were mostly the instrument of choice. After the innovators had convinced the management of the need to implement social computing, the management also demanded an evaluation of the application by a defined group of people (3). Rather than being defined by their skills and positions, this group of people comprises employees who demonstrate a deep interest in social computing: an interest group. When the interest group succeeds in making a compelling case for the introduction of the social computing application (4), the management delivers the necessary resources and legitimizes the project (5). This legitimation empowers decisions and justifies the costs of the upcoming implementation process. As a next step, the IT department is assigned the task of implementing the system from a technical perspective, including its design, security, and access (6). At the same time, the interest group starts creating content to avoid going live without adequate content to illustrate the purpose of the system. Further, the IT department signals the technical availability (7) and the management gives the final permission to go live, while preparing the announcements that will accompany the rollout (8). Going live is accompanied by a great deal of communication from the project team via the intranet, emails, flyers, and other organization communication channels. In addition, training sessions are organized in which the project team demonstrates the new application by illustrating how the system can be used in the daily work environment (9).

The research results have recently been accepted for publication:Räth, P., Urbach, N., Smolnik, S. and Butler, B. (2012) Corporate Adoption of Social Computing: A Process-Based Analysis, Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research (JITCAR), 14, 2, 3-27. (Link)

From the IT governance point of view, one central project portfolio management (PPM) task is to ensure that official projects draw upon assigned human resources. However, a common phenomenon is that resources thought to be available often turn out to be actually unavailable. Previous research indicates that numerous unofficial initiatives, also referred to as un-enacted projects, are a typical cause of this observation. Un-enacted projects are those projects that have not been officially evaluated but do exist although they are not known to or are included in a company’s project portfolio. The result is that unofficial initiatives compete for scarce resources. Despite these resource issues, previous research has barely investigated un-enacted projects.

In a recent research study we investigated the major drivers of the occurrence of un-enacted projects and their specific characteristics. By building on four in-depth case studies across four industries, we found that there is great variety in respect of (a) the type of un-enacted projects, (b) the reasons for them being triggered in organizations, and (c) their characteristics, all of which are summarized in the following categorization framework.

Different Profiles of Un-enacted Projects

On the basis of our findings, we derived several implications for PPM and provide suggestions on how to deal with un-enacted projects. The first implication concerns pilot studies. In order to resolve this governance problem, we suggest including pilot studies as a distinct type of project in the PPM process. Furthermore, our study’s findings suggest that motivation plays an important role in the context of un-enacted projects. Another major implication is that transparency should be part of PPM. The fourth implication concerns strategic un-enacted projects. In order to resolve the challenges that such projects present, organizations should set up a separate project portfolio dedicated to high-profile, strategic projects. The fifth major implication concerns executive level orders. In order to overcome this type of un-enacted project and to advance PPM, the management needs to empower the PPM. A credible PPM process needs to be introduced and the management also needs to adhere to it. A final implication is that this study’s empirical evidence suggests that resource management is a key determinant of successful PPM. With our study’s results, the academic discourse on the concept of un-enacted projects is advanced, while specific advice on how to deal with each type is given to practitioners in terms of PPM implications.

The research results have recently been accepted for publication:Buchwald, A. and Urbach, N. (2012) Exploring the Role of Un-Enacted Projects in IT Project Portfolio Management, Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2012), December 16-19, Orlando, Florida, USA. (Link)

IT executives entering into information technology (IT) outsourcing arrangements seek various strategic, economic, and technological benefits. However, although several cases of IT outsourcing are considered successful, cases of failure can also be observed. Problems and challenges associated with IT outsourcing often not only relate to the strategic decision whether or not to outsource, but to the operational level as well. Especially organizations with little experience of implementing larger IT outsourcing programs face problems with the steering of external outsourcing providers.

In a recent research project, we developed a reference framework that structures the required processes for an effective steering of IT outsourcing relationships. Furthermore, it includes contextual factors that should be taken into account when implementing those steering processes (see figure below).

Reference Framework of IT Outsourcing Steering Processes

The research was based on the design science paradigm in information systems research. In a first step, we derived a framework from related literature and knowledge in this particular area. We then undertook extensive fieldwork, including expert interviews and field studies to evaluate our framework and to develop it further. The resulting framework proved to be a viable instrument to support the systematic analysis of current processes and the definition of suitable target processes for the steering of IT outsourcing programs. This research project’s primary contribution therefore lies in providing an applicable instrument for practitioners as well as in extending the existing body of knowledge on IT outsourcing governance.

The research results have recently been accepted for publication:Urbach, N. and Würz, T. (2012) How to Steer the IT Outsourcing Provider - Development and Validation of a Reference Framework of IT Outsourcing Steering Processes, Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), 4, 5, 247-259. (Link)